Morarji Desai

Morarji Desai (29 February 1896-10 April 1995) was Prime Minister of India from 24 March 1977 to 28 July 1979, succeeding Indira Gandhi and preceding Charan Singh. Initially an Indian National Congress member, he later defected to the Janata Party, which he led to power in the 1977 election.

Biography
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was born in Bhadeli, Gujarat, India on 29 February 1896, and he worked as a civil servant in Bombay from 1918 to 1930 before becoming a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, spending a total of ten years in British prisons for civil disobedience. He made his reputation as Finance Minister of Bombay Province from 1946 to 1952, before serving as its Chief Minister from 1952 to 1956. He joined the Indian government in 1956 as Minister of Commerce and Industry, and he then served as Minister of Finance from 1958 to 1963, overseeing a series of five-year plans which led to a doubling of industrial output in ten years. After Jawaharlal Nehru's death in 1964, he was a contender for the succession, but his austere style failed to win him support in the Indian National Congress party against Indira Gandhi. He came to oppose her bitterly, in return for which he was imprisoned during the State of Emergency (1975-1977). In 1977, he led the Janata Party opposition to Gandhi, and he won the election of that year. His government restored parliamentary democracy, but he failed to deal with the economic and factional problems confronting him. An austere and principled man (who believed in the strength to be derived from drinking his own urine), he suffered from a crucial inability to compromise, and he often threatened to fast himself to death if he did not get his way. He died in 1995.